Gunther H.Oettinger European Parliament Hearing Report

14 January 2010 - Issue : 869

Gunther H.Oettinger
Energy

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Energy was one of those portfolios five years ago that Jose Manuel Barroso struggled to find an interested party to take on in his first Commission College. When announcing the new Commission designate for energy he said it was the first time, in the history of this portfolio that he actually received calls of interest to tackle it. So it will come as no surprise to anyone in the energy world that a lot now falls upon the shoulders of Gunther H. Oettinger. Expectations are high, and multibillion dollar industries are waiting and watching to see his first moves.

What were they? A rather reserved, calculated and restrained in some ways response which showed a great reliance on the treaties and EU law as can be expected from a lawyer as Oettinger is and a Commissioner to be. He placed great emphasis on research, future innovations in this area, making the gas market place fair and accessible whilst remaining secure and competitive to everyone.
He fielded many questions on the 20% obligation no a part of legislation where this amount of energy has to come from renewable resources and how he planned to tackle this, would it be enough, what was the scope for increasing this.

Energy efficiency and security take precedence after the Copenhagen Conference.
Working with what is already valid "my job is to work with you on the 2020 target and if 2050 is set up as a long term goal of decarbonisation then I will discuss with the parliament how to achieve this technically," Oettinger stated.

Biomass imports are to be to be looked at in terms of markets economies, whether they create a balance or an imbalance with third countries the Commissioner Designate stated.
Nabucco and Northstream were questioned in terms of allegiance and progression where the Commissioner stated that networks in the Mediterranean going to Africa need to make decisive progress in the years ahead.
Northstream is about to be completed or realized in terms of their agreement we see as lacking solidarity by Poland and the Baltics and we need to learn form that and the downfalls of bilateral agreements on these issues. "We need to move away from bilateral agreements to European agreements on these large issues."
Nabucco also he mentioned in terms of external relations and how the EU cooperates with countries which differ from the fundamental values of the EU and what we do with them.

"Energy is a raw material and a product and whether our reserves are dependant on areas such as Azerbaijan or that of the Caspian region like the gas field in Azerbaijan we have to look at how to use that in the long term, and that is a key question we must answer this year," the Commissioner Designate said.
The larger industries in this sector must be engaged with - we need to talk to them - business, politics and money mean dialogue - a dialogue that can help us progress further away from dependency.
The issues of nuclear waste were handled aptly by outlining ideas to including public private partnerships in this field and the next few years it will be an interesting area to see who will invest noted the Commissioner Designate. Incentives have to be created, lending programmes, and final storage as whether you are for or against these need to be dealt with.

He acknowledged that whole areas of the EU were energy islands and isolated from common grids for example the Baltics were isolated and in the future the goal is to prevent isolation from the common grid.
MEP Chatzimarkakis seemed to call the Commissioner Designate up on possible over use of subsidiarity and asked him to take on more "European" response to which Oettinger replied he will be acting in a college and this was natural.

"The guidelines in my portfolio are clear, implementing them will be my role for the next five years, and one thing the Copenhagen negotiations showed that sometimes event the EU is not big enough when it comes to China, or media control - we cannot achieve clear targets without solidarity."

The Commisisoner designate was well prepared, some aimed to look frustrated or pressing on him but mostly the atmosphere was one of welcome, the Lisbon treaty and its new role in imposing an energy mix was discussed, as well as the respectful opinion the Commissioner Designate has of training and further research into innovative sectors of the field.

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